It was indeed a Merry Christmas for the grandad and I this year. We got to see lots of our kids and Grandkids, and that certainly made it wonderful for us.
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| Susan and Christian came for Christmas this year! On the morning of Christmas Eve, we made the annual fruitcake! It was delicious. My face is because I was trying to find us to take a selfie. Taking selfies is an art, and I missed out on the talent. |
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The dad decided to try it in a bundt pan this year. I think this will be our new tradition. It turned out great!
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I failed in the taking pictures on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day duty. We went to King Dragon for Chinese food as per our tradition and Christian's family's tradition. We had a lovely Christmas Day around the Christmas tree before Christmas, and then afterwards, and no pictures. Maybe your imagination would be better anyway.
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| The Farmington crew came over Christmas afternoon. We had a wonderful Christmas. |
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| Carol and Mark came over the day after Christmas. So did Brian's family, and so did Amy's family. Again, I forgot to take pictures. I did a little better the next few days. We got out the Twister game. David and Eli played it for quite awhile The other kids popped in and out of the game. |
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| We had a bit of snow. All the kids went out to play. Eli, the Phoenix boy, came in after a few minutes because he was freezing. He said he didn't know snow was that cold! |
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| It really was cold. After they came in, Chelsea and I went to Walgreens and bought all the kids hats and mittens. That helped when we went back out in the snow. |
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| The kids went sledding on the ice in the driveway. They had a blast until the ice melted too much to slide well. |
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| And of course, there was plenty of time spent playing the Wrapping Paper Game! |
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| Brian and Chelsea got us "Adventure Challenge Dinner Dates" for Christmas. While Amy and Cody were here, we did the first challenge. It was a double date. It was a ton of fun! |
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| Eli was on our team, and Calvin was on Amy's and Cody's team. Notice Eli is stirring with a butter knife! |
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| Both teams prepared delicious beef stir-fry. Even the kids gobbled it up! The date (and the book) was a winner! |
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| This is how I watched a Christmas movie! |
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| For the dad's and my Christmas gift, Amy and Cody picked up some filing cabinets from Ikea, drove them in their stuffed car here to Gallup, AND they put the together for us! |
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| We decided to try a second fruitcake this year for the New Year using gluten-free ingredients. |
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| I guess I didn't take any pictures of the finished product, but it tasted pretty much the same as the Christmas Eve fruitcake. |
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| It's New Year's Eve and time to make the tamales! |
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| Grandad made Armadillo eggs for the celebration, too! |
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| Here are some more pictures of sledding. Amy took some, and I took some, and I didn't get them put in the blog together. |
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| We did our traditional New Year's Eve/New Year's puzzle. |
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| We didn't get the puzzle finished before the Pederson crew got all packed up to leave on New Year's morning. Calvin wasn't feeling well, so they decided just to head for home instead of going to church. |
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| The finished puzzle! How did that happen if they left before the puzzle was done? |
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| This is how. On their way home, their car decided it was done just a few miles past Chambers. We left church and went to their rescue! We got to have them with us a couple of days longer, and that was nice for us. |
